One common toy used for interactive development of a child's mathematical ability is the familiar building blocks. These blocks often contain either letters or numbers on their sides and are used by a teacher who instructs a child in the blocks' face significance. Traditional building blocks allow children to learn important developmental concepts such as quantity and spelling, while also improving their motor control skills as they manipulate the blocks. But with little or no prior knowledge of these ideas, the child must rely on the teacher to guide and show him/her exactly what quantity they see or what words they are spelling. The blocks, once printed, can display only one number on each face. This limitation, however, may not only prove to be problematic when blocks are lost, but limit functionality (for example, number blocks will always display numbers). Furthermore, traditional blocks often offer a very static level of aesthetics, which may play an important role in the motivation of the child.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide an improved apparatus and method configured or otherwise configurable to dynamically output desired information in a way that is both visually appealing and motivating for its user. It may also be desirable for such an apparatus and method to include an appropriate feedback component that may perform some, if not all, of the functions of a teacher in the context of traditional building blocks. And further, it may be desirable for such an apparatus and method to be configurable to permit different functionality, such as to increase the levels of teaching lessons that may be provided to a user.